Effects of Multipath Signal Propagation on UAV Communications

Wireless communication is an essential enabling technology for UAV applications. Several factors impact the reliability of communication signals, including multipath. Multipath propagation is a phenomenon where a signal arrives at a receiver through multiple paths and significantly affects communication quality and reliability. Many ongoing studies focus on finding more efficient solutions to this issue; however, there is a lack of available references that can clearly establish the nature of the fundamental issues associated with multipath propagation. This study investigates the impact of multipath on UAV communication signals. It comprehensively examines the random variations in path gain and propagation delay, revealing the challenges these variations pose to UAV communication.